Island of Pheasants
The island of the Pheasants or island of the Conference is an small island (3 000 m ²), in the middle of the Bidassoa, which forms in this point the limit of the France and the Spain (). It is undoubtedly smallest Condominium of the world.
Geography
The conventional border passes on the island even, or rather on the small island, to give him a name righter. The island of Pheasants is a simple deposit of alluvia of little extent, that the river would have made for a long time disappear if one had not surrounded it by a palisade and macadamizations, because of the historical memories which are attached to it.
History
It is indeed on this small space of desiccated vase that met in 1659 Louis XIV, king de France, and Philippe IV, king de Castille. It is at the same place, but in a boat in the middle of Bidassoa, that in 1526 the exchange of François I was made {{er}} against its two sons given as hostages. In 1615, the French and Spanish ambassadors made in the island of Pheasants the exchange of two promised in marriage royal: Isabelle, girl of Henri IV, king de France, promised with Philippe IV, and the sister of this one, Anne of Austria, intended for Louis XIII. In 1659, the marriage of Louis XIV with the girl of the king Philippe IV was negotiated there in a conference which lasted three months, between the cardinal Mazarin and Don Shine of Haro, at the same time as the peace treaty known as of the the Pyrenees. Finally June 5th and 6th 1660, Louis XIV and Philippe IV met there in person for the confirmation of the treaty and the conclusion of the marriage.A memorial of the conference of 1659 was high in 1861 on the island of Pheasants by the two countries bordering.
October 23rd, 1940 a meeting took place between Adolf Hitler and the Général Free, this last confirming the non-alignment of Spain in the Second world war.
Since the treaty of the Pyrenees the small island is a Condominium under the authority in turn of France and Spain, changing hand every 6 months. (See territorial Characteristics of France).
Literature
Jean of the Fountain made a malicious allusion to the meeting of 1660 in its fable of the “Two Goats”:
I think to see, with Louis the Large one,
Philippe Four which advances
in the island of the Conference.
External bonds
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